"Julia Holter second album, Ekstasis, is a collection of songs written and recorded across the span of three years in Los Angeles, California. Holter's songwriting stems from a mythological reverence of that which is incomprehensibly beautiful. While Ekstasis reflects the conventions of her classical training, the album is also uncannily, if unknowingly, poppy. Holter's approach to crafting the songs of Ekstasis centered around what she describes as, "open ear decisions: what seemed to sound best for that moment." This blindness to reference unintentionally steers Ekstasis along the experimental pop spectrum most commonly associated to New York's Downtown music micro-universe of the 80s, specifically the works of Laurie Anderson and Arthur Russell." (label info)